


Diaspora

by Nebulad



Series: Sataareth [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Qunari Culture, vashoth culture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-09
Updated: 2016-08-09
Packaged: 2018-08-07 14:06:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7717684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nebulad/pseuds/Nebulad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It’s just informative, Adaar, no one’s gunna care,” he assured her, still playing calm. “It’s just for the sake of thoroughness— the Qun has never, in all of history, mounted a manhunt for some farmers.”</p><p>“Listen you fucking ox,” she snapped, feeling the frayed edges of her nerves keenly. “You will take the part about my parents out of the report or I swear by your prophet, their prophet—” she gestured sharply in the general direction of the Chantry, “—the Stone and all the goddamn Creators the elves can name off the top of their heads that I will make you <i>regret</i> it.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Diaspora

Leliana had graciously offered to learn to read Qunlat in order to monitor Bull’s correspondence with the Qun, but Tama dismissed it as pointless. He could report too much in the time it would take her to create even an easy cipher for reference— perhaps it was her own paranoia, but Adaar stepped forward to accept the task.

With tense shoulders and lowered head (remembering that to him, to hold her head high was just baring her throat and getting her horns out of the way) she’d approached him in the bar where he was drunkenly recounting a tale for an awestruck human who was inching ever closer to sitting right on Bull. She cleared her throat and he grinned, lifting his mug. “Your reports will come to me, not Leliana,” she said stiffly, trying not to feel uncomfortable about the sudden silence.

“Figured Red wouldn’t know how to read them, but she seemed pretty confident,” he said conversationally, like there weren’t too many eyes jumping in between the two of them.

“We decided it would be a waste of resources to teach her. I know. I will take your reports. That’s all.” She wondered if he would appreciate the bluntness of it all as she walked away. It was her impression that it was what Qunari were like— get to the point and get along. _Like he never left Par Vollen._

. . . . .

The first report is what she expected a Qunari to sound like— not like Bull’s belly laughs in the tavern, and not his half-flirtatious banter, but brief and topical. _The Inquisition is headed by a council of three humans with close ties to the Chantry (see 2.a for Spymaster Leliana, 2.b for Señora Josephine Montilyet, 2.c for Ser Cullen Rutherford) and field decisions are handled by the rumoured Herald of Andraste and Ser Cassandra Pentaghast (Seeker of Truth, 2.d). The only one without any ties to Andrastianism is the Herald, a Vashoth raised in rural Orlais. Parents confirmed Tal-Vashoth, but pose no significant threat. Recommend waiting._

“Take the bit about my parents out.” She slammed the paper down in front of him, not caring that the Chargers once again froze at her approach. The whole tavern— frankly Haven’s tavern wasn’t at all large— came to a shuddering halt, watching her.

“It’s just informative, Adaar, no one’s gunna care,” he assured her, still playing calm. “It’s just for the sake of thoroughness— the Qun has never, in all of history, mounted a manhunt for some farmers.”

“Listen you fucking ox,” she snapped, feeling the frayed edges of her nerves keenly. “You will take the part about my parents out of the report or I swear by your prophet, their prophet—” she gestured sharply in the general direction of the Chantry, “—the Stone and all the goddamn Creators the elves can name off the top of their heads that I will make you _regret_ it.”

She broke. For just a second flames scorched her palms and the table, but she didn’t expect him to jolt back like he did. _“Relax,”_ he snapped.

“And here I thought you were _Ben-Hassrath,_ not _arvaarad.”_

“I’ll revise it.” He sounded angry, and she supposed it was easy to see her as unreasonable when you had no earthly ties to another goddamn person. No obligations. “It’ll cross your desk before nightfall.”

“See that it does.” She stormed out, taking his first report with her so it could be blasted into fucking ashes. True to his word, he sent her the revised version an hour later. _The only one without any ties to Andrastianism is the Herald, a Vashoth raised in rural Orlais. She remains sensitive to personal queries and requires further cooperation before anything significant can be shared. Recommend waiting._

. . . . .

She was trapped with the Bull, although in fairness he was oddly low on her list of _people it would kill her to spend time with._ When he wasn’t writing out his reports— so most of the time— he was like a real person. He made jokes, he argued a little, and he bantered with Vivienne like a natural. Cole had liked him immediately upon meeting him, and Tama found it… difficult to keep hating him on principle. He didn’t do anything that she expected from the Qunari of her father’s stories.

They were in a cave on the Storm Coast when a rockfall blocked them off from Vivienne and Cole. While they went to get help, the Vashoth were left to wait together. “Hope you’re not claustrophobic, boss,” he said, settling back.

“The internal structures still seem fairly sturdy,” she responded. “I believe we will be fine.”

“Well now I’m relieved,” he teased. His reports still ran the same vein, still perfunctory and just toeing the line of _invasive._ He reported very little on her, although the responses he gave her from Qunandar did ask. She would mark the questions he could answer— a physical description, the observational bounds of her magic use, her history of training (“Where do _you_ think I trained?” she’d asked, and he’d wordlessly marked down _Tal-Vashoth)_. “Looks like we’re gunna be hanging around for a while, though. Wanna play I Spy?” he asked.

“I actually have a question, now that you’re here,” she said, straightening up.

“Uh oh.”

“Relax. I just want to know what Par Vollen is like.” For her parents it was a veritable nightmare. It was a place they’d fled, and while there were times they could speak fondly of their country, it was inextricable from the conflict they’d escaped. She was just… curious. Certainly the Qun was flexible enough for concepts of _home._

“What, like Qunandar?” he asked. She could see his guard go up.

“Yes, Bull, I’m planning an invasion and if you could give me precise guard rotations that would be lovely.” He grinned a little and shrugged.

“Not a lot of people just wanting to shoot the shit about Par Vollen,” he defended.

“How many Vashoth have you spoken to?” It was easy to get annoyed with Bull because he acted dense. He was trying to throw her off because he thought she wanted a load of useless numbers for some reason; she didn’t. She wanted to know what it felt like to be in a city with your own people, if there were stalls set up just to sell horn balm or casings, and what the farmers grew in the deserts.

“Well… don’t really know what to say. It isn’t like the south at all, for one. Having a load of us all in one place— it’s bigger, you know?” he asked.

“Not really.” She’d been making due with small chairs and _petit_ portion sizes ever since becoming a merc. Tama wasn’t a particularly large Vashoth either, simply… bigger than a human.

“You get more food for less money,” he said. “Better food too. Orlais doesn’t like to make shit too spicy but in Qunandar they’ve got these little glass bottles filled with cayenne pepper and there’s a curry place by the outer fortifications— I think they stole the recipe from some ‘Vint— but it’s great.” Leave it to him to talk about the food to start.

“Is there a lot of Tevinter stuff?” she asked, and the face he pulled made her laugh.

“There is,” he admitted, “just don’t tell all your other Qunari friends I said so. The Triumvirate likes to think we’ve created a culture entirely devoid of outside influence but… well our clothes for one. We get a lot more colourful than the ‘Vints, but our fabrics are pretty much the same. You won’t see a _tamassran_ in a ballgown or nothing, but the way we wrap certain outfits is pretty much a mimic of Ancient Tevinter. It isn’t just us though,” he added. “Don’t let Dorian tell you the ‘Vints invented _jalebi.”_

“So Tevinter is the only link to the rest of Thedas?” she asked, and he snorted.

“Wouldn’t that be the sad— our only link to Thedas being a dead end.” He shook his head. “Rivain is our _best_ link to Thedas, and we get a lot of stuff from them too. There’s a settlement, actually, in the north that’s ours— it’s just Tevinter is closer so when the Qun doesn’t know what to do, we can only look down. Not a _lot_ of records on it, but when we first came south there was a lot we had to figure out on our own.” She wondered how he’d even seen records of anything. It was her impression that if it wasn’t your business then there was no room to try and _make_ it so.

“What sort of things are Rivaini?” No point in _asking_ how he knew about any sort of historical record, because it was either a story that would derail them or none of _her_ business.

“Well, _vitaar_ is sort of inspired by their tattoos. It’s where we went first instead of armour, since so many of us are too big and Par Vollen is too hot. The _tamassrans_ did some research and came up with the makeup of the actual paint, and I think we just looked over and went _all right, we’ll do it like this._ It isn’t the same as their marks, and eventually to cover up the fact that there was a period in time where we had to figure shit out just like everyone else, all our patterns changed up, but,” he shrugged.

“You know a lot about your people’s history for a Ben-Hassrath,” she offered.

“Sure do.” Well, she’d expected to be dismissed anyway. No one could blame her for trying. “You don’t know a lot, considering all the Tal-Vashoth you hung around with.” She shrugged.

“Many were unhappy with the Qun, and no stories could be told of Par Vollen without the people. My parents wanted me to be Orlesian.” And for the most part, she was. No one ever considered that she might want to be Vashoth too.

“That’s the sort of thing Qunandar would want me to report, you know,” he said, leaning his head back against the stone.

“ _C’est dommage,”_ she said with a sardonic little grin.

“Not knowing much about the Qun, curiosity about Qunari— it’d make you a candidate for conversion,” he told her, opening his eye. She got the strangest feeling like the other one was still closed, despite the fact that it was covered.

“Let me save you the ink: no.” That made him laugh a little, which was… more promising than a sermon— if he could even give one, being a Ben-Hassrath posing as Tal-Vashoth all this time.

. . . . .

“Are you insane?” she demanded, slamming open the door to his room where Krem had assured her he had retreated to _alone._ He groaned, sitting up and rubbing the prickle of hair growing back over his skull— she’d also been forewarned that Cabot had broken out the dwarven ale and Iron Bull had gotten too big for his britches.

“Can we do this quieter?” he grunted.

“You’re telling them about the _Valo-Kas?”_ she demanded, making no effort to lower her volume. He sagged on the bed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“They’re gunna start thinking I’m a shitty informer if you don’t let me report anything,” he warned her, lurching to his feet and over to a freshly filled sink. The servants seemed to be immensely fond of him (she couldn’t _imagine_ why).

“Bull take them _out,”_ she snapped. “My parents are farmers but they’re _mercenaries,_ and under the Qun some of them are criminals.” Shokrakar for certain, if her stories about resisting reeducation were true (and why exactly would she lie?).

“I keep telling you, the Qunari aren’t gunna launch an invasion for a group of Tal-Vashoth. Your friends are fine, but _mine_ are starting to wonder why I’m reporting on the weather in Orlais,” he said, splashing his face.

“This isn’t a _joke_ Bull, I shouldn’t have even told you about them.” Kaariss and the Ashaads and Taarlok and Katoh… she’d just wanted to _brag._ Bull had a merc squad and they were _great_ which made her miss Kaariss’ poetry (an acquired taste, and Shokrakar promised to update her when someone finally acquired it), and Katoh’s bombs (Rocky had begged for details that she just… hadn’t had, because Katoh worked in a myriad of mysterious ways). Bull and the Chargers were her _friends_ and she wanted them to know about Shokrakar’s warhammer and her laugh and everything else that made her the best captain there was (“Ouch, boss”).

And now he was writing a _report_ on it.

“Who’s joking?” he asked, drying off his face and moving stiffly back towards the bed. He flopped down and exhaled enough to deflate, his eye fluttering shut. She shuffled in, shutting the door behind her and crawling up to lay beside him. She rolled on to her back, staring up at the ceiling.

“You don’t report everything I say,” she pointed out.

“The Qun isn’t gunna launch an invasion for your bean dip, no matter how many times I ask,” he grunted back. “And they don’t follow Tal-Vashoth down here. Once someone leaves the Qun, goes through that much effort to escape their role and their duty… then they’re gone, Tama. We don’t even acknowledge they exist anymore. My reporting that they’re there is just me saying that you have Tal-Vashoth influences.”

“I’m only saying that…” She shut her eyes because she was going to embarrass herself and it was going to be awful. “It sort of makes me feel weird. You don’t report on my magic, you only give perfunctory summaries of my decisions, my promotion to Inquisitor was a footnote against Haven… there’s just a lot of things about me that I feel you think are less important in comparison to my non-role in the Qun,” she said.

“... and?” he asked, which kind of stung a little.

“I just… thought we were friends,” she responded, her voice a bit meeker than she might have liked. She’d never been very close to anyone outside the _Valo-kas,_ so she was almost certainly fucking this right up but… open communication was good, right?

He made a noise kind of like a mix between the hangover groan and a growl. “Quit looking at me like that,” he snapped, and she laughed.

“You can’t even see me.” His head was propped up on pillows and facing the other way.

“I don’t _have_ to see you to know you’re giving me this sad look that’s gunna make me want to change the report even though I’m gunna get in shit for it,” he groused. She thought for a few seconds, trying to patch something together that she thought Qunandar would be interested in.

“They want to know about me, yes?” she asked, and he nodded. “I’m going to be studying Fade Magic with a Circle Mage,” she offered, and he lifted himself up so he could turn and face her.

“You’re doin’ what now?”

“Well, I thought that there was only the Veil blocking this world from the Fade. With my circumstances, what better specialization to take?” she asked, and he shook his head and flopped back down, this time angled towards her (as far as he could with his horns, anyway).

“Sounds like mage shit,” he huffed, and she smiled.

“ _Ouais, bas saarebas_ shit. Good enough for Qunandar?” she asked.

“Good enough to make up for my last three _who wore it best in Val Royeaux_ reports,” he said, settling down more comfortably. “Gimmie two more hours and I’ll change it,” he added, reaching out for the blankets. She hopped off the bed so he could pull them over himself, and made a mental note to send someone from the kitchens with Josephine's Antivan hangover remedy.

. . . . .

Bull was glaring at her and her face was getting tired from frowning back. She had expected him to say something earlier, but evidently he was content to let her set this powderkeg off and soon she would. She’d accepted the roaming band of Vashothari into Skyhold _hours_ ago, and his jaw had got tight and he hadn’t said a word.

“They claimed kinship on me,” she began. If he was _gaatlok_ then she was fire to set him off. “And even if they hadn’t I would not have turned them away. I don’t know what you wanted me to do.”

“Turn them away,” he returned tersely.

“Why would I _ever_ do that?” Her voice rose a little too sharply and the others in the hall looked up at her curiously. It was dinner time and many people wandered in to sit at the tables Josephine tirelessly set up _to encourage camaraderie._ Tama would have preferred to be sitting with her people, but they were getting set up in the luxurious tents surrounding the fort. Josephine _and_ Leliana had assured her that the group would be taken care of completely, and that she could put them out of her head until the morning; not that she would, but they would be ready for her then.

“Because you’ve got no idea who these people are or if they’re safe. You could be letting a bunch of thugs in with the families down there.” He speared a piece of meat and jammed it in his mouth, evidently done explaining himself to her. She glowered.

“I don’t do background checks on the humans either.”

“Humans have a lower crime rate.” As soon as he said it she could tell he regretted it, but stood up anyway. “Tamassran—” She stormed away, back to her room where she planned on slamming the door and organising everything she had hoarded there for Winter Solstice the next day. She’d planned to do it all much later, maybe pull an all-nighter, but spite was a fantastic motivator.

Bull was only a step behind her, though, despite how long it’d taken him to pull himself to his feet. “Tama I’m _sorry,_ come back and eat,” he insisted, very wisely not reaching out to try and stop her. She threw open the door to her room, though she lost the satisfaction of slamming it shut again, and took the stairs two at a time because Bull and stairs were not friends.

“I’m not hungry,” she responded icily, moving over to her desk with a shiver she tried to contain.

“No shit.” Bull sounded kind of awestruck, looking around at what her room had become. “What’s with all the… fruit?” he asked. Her room was filled almost to bursting with tropical fruit imported from the north— bananas, oranges, lemons, strawberries, and every other fruit she could think of when Josephine placed the order— and to boot, it was rather cold for a Vashoth to comfortably live. She’d been sleeping in the barracks since the fruit had arrived.

“It’s Winter Solstice tomorrow,” she told him shortly, not bothering to elaborate because if he wanted to know about her Tal-Vashoth traditions then he would have to bloody _ask_ like she asked him about Qunari.

“Am I supposed to… know what that means?” he asked, his skin already breaking out into gooseflesh. She sat on a rug, crossing her legs and pulling a crate of blackberries over. He followed, sitting near her and evidently not knowing exactly when to quit.

“Are you sure you _want_ to know? It isn’t an Orlesian thing,” she warned him, trying to picture in her head how she was going to arrange the fruit. The berries had to go on top, of course, otherwise they would get smooshed by the heavier bananas and oranges. _She_ had to calm down or else she would bruise more fruit than she packed.

“Tama I’m _sorry._ Tell me about Tal-Vashoth winter stuff,” he said, reaching out to pull some baskets over on instinct.

“Will it go in a report?” she asked, deciding that there was some melon somewhere that could serve as an adequate base.

“I won’t report on your Tal-Vashoth holidays, and not _only_ because no one up north cares, but because you don’t want me to,” he recited, and she nudged him. _“And_ I’m sorry that I called them all criminals.”

“I understand, Bull. I understand Seheron and that you are Qunari, but I don’t understand what’s different about Tal-Vashoth. You say that you can’t hate all ‘Vints, and that you can’t hate whole groups of people, but Tal-Vashoth? They seem to be an exception.” She stood to try and find where the melon was, shivering against the frost that Vivienne had cast in order to keep the fruit fresh.

“It’s… different, up in Seheron. I’m working on it, but I didn’t meet a cute Tal-Vashoth sidekick down south,” he said, and she laughed.

“I’m telling Krem you said he was cute.”

“He’s fucking dreamy and he knows it.”

“You met me in the south,” she pointed out, leaning precariously over some raspberries.

“You’re not Tal-Vashoth,” he reminded her, craning around to try and figure out what she was doing. She straightened up with a box full of cantaloupe, setting it down and getting to work. Bull mimicked her.

“I am cute, though?” she asked, and he rolled his eye.

“You gunna tell me what we’re doing or what?” he returned and she laughed.

“Ass. Fine, well, tomorrow is Winter Solstice. It’s the peak of the season, the shortest day and longest night of the year— and also the point at which many Tal-Vashoth communities have exhausted most of their preserves from harvest. Some are better off than others— my community did fairly well, considering that my mother was a farmer and my father a mage. They had little greenhouses set up in the house to try and pick up some slack from the winter,” she explained.

“Makes sense,” he said, trying to gently fight a banana into place.

“And so there’s a tradition that those families with proper income— whether they be like mine, who received the bulk of my salary as a mercenary, or have managed to set up a market stall somewhere— pool some money together to import fruit. It helps with winter sickness and depression, and they hold a big festival with paper lanterns and if there is a mage they will melt away the snow and heat the area. We celebrate being halfway through the winter.”

Her words didn’t do it proper justice, but it was hard to condense that feeling into a step-by-step explanation. Many Tal-Vashoth would only settle as far south as Nevarra, but there was still a thriving Vashoth community around Serault. She knew that the Solstice was celebrated differently in the hotter countries, but it was still… something. A way for everyone to come together and remember their roots— to give what they had to uplift the weak, to create a strong and cooperative _kith_ (a Qunlat word that had been modified in meaning— _community_ rather than military company— as they had very little need for so much military language outside the Qun).

“And you’re gunna do that here?” He looked skeptical, but she couldn’t tell if he disapproved or just couldn’t imagine how she would pull it off.

“Yes, although I imagine I will have to correct many people when they say it is a Qunari holiday. I don’t supposed Par Vollen has much need for a Solstice celebrating not starving to death in winter,” she said, and he snorted, shaking his head.

“The _worst_ part about the south. I expected a lot of shit coming down here— corruption, depravity, slums, selfishness, greed— but no one ever told me shit about winter. What about Tal-Vashoth up north?” he asked.

“As far north as Seheron, I couldn’t say. I’ve heard in Antiva they celebrate in anticipation of the turning of the crop, in preparation of the planting season to come. Rivain has something to do with the Seers and the training of the younger generation— Solstice is a holiday they celebrate already, I believe— but it is hard to find details. They are very protective of the humans there.” She found herself oddly content in Serault, although perhaps she might have been less Orlesian and more Vashoth had her parents stayed in Rivain where they’d landed after fleeing. Her father had been wary of _Kont-aar,_ however, and urged her mother further south.

“So all these baskets get handed out to…” he trailed off and she shrugged.

“I send money home to my parents still, so their festival will be large this year. Sending home money, however, does not cut into my profits as much as it used to, so I will hand these out to whoever wants them. I need to set some aside specifically for the Vashothari in the settlement, but besides that? Free for all,” she said, finally getting to placing the berries.

“So we gotta fill _all_ these baskets?” he asked, and she laughed.

“Cole and Vivienne volunteered to help as well,” she assured him, and as if he’d been waiting for his cue, Cole appeared at the top of the stairs looking _delighted._

“This is _wonderful!”_ he breathed, taking in the sight of all the fruit on display.

“Yes, yes, move along,” Vivienne groused shortly, climbing up behind him. Cole was growing on her steadily, but his tendency to read her mind aloud still frayed her nerves. “Hello darlings. I didn’t expect to see you here, Bull.”

“Put my foot in my mouth, ma’am,” he told her, carefully placing blackberries. “Thought I should help to try and make up for it.”

“He thinks Adaar is pretty,” Cole reported casually, shuffling over to where the plums were stored. He looked around, then thinking better of it, turned back to her. “Tama, may I borrow some of these?” he asked. “For spiders?”

Grinning directly at the Bull, who stuck his tongue out at her, she allowed it. The _point_ of Solstice, she supposed was sharing. Even with spiders.

**Author's Note:**

> this is like almost nine pages congrats on u for making it this far. [My writing blog is here](http://nebulaad.tumblr.com) come see me occasionally complain about how fucking hard it is to write for several groups of people with little to no lore. now if you'll excuse me, I have to write some Cole genfic because I saw porn in the tag and I want to live in a world where people aren't making porn of Cole.


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